Tipping Points

A couple of weeks ago, a commenter directed me to Change Therapy, a free online book about marketing "soft skills" like therapy by David P. Diana. I'm a little leary of promoting things from sources I'm not sure of, so my first action after seeing the comment was to email the link to a friend of mine who has been a practicing psychologist for over 40 years. His response was not only positive, but there was the hint that it would do me some good too.

I did enjoy reading the book. Among the gems within it, was a revisitation of Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours rule. In a nutshell, 10,000 hours of practice is the tipping point of making one an expert at a skill. Diana extended the rule into an exercise program for one's career.

Yesterday, I visited Positivityratio.com, Dr. Barbara Fredrickson's site. Fredrickson found through her studies that "that experiencing positive emotions in a 3-to-1 ratio with negative ones leads people to a tipping point beyond which they naturally become more resilient to adversity and effortlessly achieve what they once could only imagine." Knowing that negativity is one of my worse inner demons, I've decided to track my positive/negative ratio on her site.

Most of my life, I've been told that it takes 21 days to create a new habit. I've have started several "habits" this way, only to have them get squashed by major life upheavals months later. The thing is I don't want new habits, I want an effective lifestyle where I take better care of myself than I do now. I can't do this by being a "habitist". That's how I developed my toolbox of immediate stress relievers. What I need to do is to become an expert - a master - of personally dealing with stress and depression.

So, how can I apply the 10,000 hour rule here? Well, to make it more manageable, I've decided that I would focus on two things - becoming an "expert" at realistic positiveness and becoming an expert at visual processing. The first is for my health; the second is for a career. If I were to assume that I could apply myself to one of these goals 16 hours a day, then it would take me 625 days or about 22 months to gain expertise. Though that is hardly a realistic expectation, especially since I have health concerns that bring the Spoon Theory into play. If I did an hour a day, it would take me a little over 357 months or close to 30 years to achieve the 10,000 hours by rough estimate. After a few more calculations and based on the fact that I tend to have 5 year cycles in my life, I've decided to make a goal of doing at least 2000 hours of effort to my mastery of these two fields, per year. This means about 5.5 hours a day or 38 hours a week. Luckily for me, I can integrate these tasks in with my other activities, and in fact, I already am to some extent. It might take me a little while to get that going strong, but I suspect that once I do, the 5.5 hour practice will naturally extend itself. And on those days when it's harder, I will remind myself that even if I have been doing it for several months, I still have to reach that 10,000 hours.

Time

In his talk about compassion, Daniel Goleman mentions that the most important factor in determining whether or not someone will act like a good Samaritan is if whether or not they feel rushed. Along the same vein, Carl Honore's talks about the need to slow down in this world that is speeding towards the future:




But is slow always the answer? Too often people go from one extreme to another. Luckily, Philip Zimbardo gives us a healthy view on time:



The past gives us roots. The future gives us wings. The present gives us energy. The trick is to know which focus to use when.

Compassion from a Secular View

I may address compassion, using most of the TED talks from the Charter on Compassion, along with other sources in my religious journal during the holidays, but for now I'll just share these secular views of the evolution of compassion.


Couldn't find this video on YouTube. If you cannot see the embedded video, then go to http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/robert_wright_the_evolution_of_compassion.html

Covers the genetic reasons for the Golden Rule, Game Theory, and economic interdepencies. Also introduces the concept of "moral imagination", otherwise known as the age-old adage of putting yourself in another's shoes.


The next talk shares some of the science research dealing with the psychology of compassion. This is a very engaging talk and quite enjoyable.

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It is interesting that the research Dr. Daniel Goleman shows that while we are all neurologically wired for compassion, what determines whether we will do a compassionate act or not is usually how hurried or pre-occupied we are.

I am also stuck by the fact that neurological studies show that the act of doing something for someone else, usually triggers the circuitry of compassion in the brain. I can give several quotes and truisms from my youth and religion, which attest to this phenomenon, that I have found to be very true myself. Likewise, he shares an insight gained from a serial killer, who once said, "If I had felt their distress, I could not have had done. I had to turn that part of me off."

To expand your vocabulary, Goleman shares the word "pizzled" - the emotion one experiences in that moment when someone suddenly answers their cell phone, iPhone, Blackberry, whatever, and acts as if the first person no longer exists.

While I agree that the act of noticing is a major step towards compassion, it takes more than just noticing to enact effective compassion. As they say, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." To give quality compassion, one needs to take a little more time to find the root cause and not just do bandage compassion all of the time. A bandaid in the wrong place can sometimes be worse than no bandage at all, but it doesn't need to happen if, along with noticing, you also listen. Then you will better know whether the bandage needs to be here or there, or if maybe you need to help the person get to a doctor instead.

When I was young, I thought I was a compassionate person, and in my defense, I did strive to be one. But as I experienced more of life's obstacles, I realized that some of the acts of my younger self were not really as compassionate as I thought they were. As Carl Rogers was fond of pointing out, the only person who really knows what is going on inside a person, is the person themselves. So, listen as well as see, and you will increase your changes of giving quality compassion.